domenica 4 giugno 2017

Extreme Tensions in M&V 11 April 2017

Extreme Tensions

In popularopinion, San Carlo Theatre in Naples is one of the cradles of Italianopera with programs entirely geared to Italian comicoperas and melodramas. Yet one of the most accurate
Italian musicologists, the late Giorgio Gualerzi, demonstrated that San Carlo
Theatre is where Richard Strauss' operas are most frequently
performed in Italy. On 9 April 2017, I was sitting in a side box to listen to and
see Elektra, not a new production but a revival of a much acclaimed 2003 staging which in that year was awarded the
Premio Abbiati — the Oscar Prize for Opera awarded by the Italian National
Association of Music Critics. I remember I saw the production in December
2003 and I was thoroughly enthralled by it.The special feature of the
2003 production was the full fusion between the drama (or rather the tragedy) and the music. The stage director was Klaus-Michael Grüber, who died
in 2008. The stage set was by Anselm Kiefer who is not
a stage settingprofessional but a sculptor and a painter — among the best known in Germany. Kiefer had been convinced by Grüber to join
forces with him in this undertaking. In the revival, Ellen Hammer, Grüber's long-term assistant, revamped the production with
utmost care to be as faithful as possible to the 2003 original. The musical cast has, of course, entirely changed over the last
thirteen years. Then, the conductor
was Gabriele
Ferro.

Now, young conductor, Juraj Valčuha is the new musical director of the San Carlo Theatre; under his baton, the sound is very round and the dissonances are stronger
than under Ferro's. At the same time, Valčuha pays a lot of attention to the chromatic and melodic sections, as well as to
the parts of the score where harmony reaches its extreme tensions. The final scene, when the passage known as 'Chrysothemis' waltz' — a moment of joy and hope for Elektra's
younger sister — becomes the macabre dance of the protagonist, was magnificent.

The vocal cast is fully
integrated with this orchestral reading. Elena Pankratova (Elektra)
is well known in Italy after her debut at the Florence May Festival in 2010. The others do not frequently sing in Italy, but their performances were flawless, from the icy Renée
Morloc (Klytāmnestra) and the sweet Manuela Uhl (Chrysothemis) to the brutal
Michael Laurenz (Aegisth) and the valiant Robert Bork (Orest).